I certainly can't beat the 'shredder'!

Right now, I think that I'd have to say the time when the bull decided we shouldn't park so close to the barn, and elected himself as the 'mover'... but I'm going to have to think about THIS question a little more!!

When Geoffrey (my AKC greyhound) was under a year old, I caught him mouthing something & immediately went to look. I could have sworn I saw something shiny but it disappeared from view as I watched him swallow.

I thought about what that item might have been & finally took him off to my vet's late that afternoon for an x-ray. Doc was disbelieving, "You really think he swallowed a sewing needle?" Indeed the rad revealed he HAD.

I was to bulk him up with Hill's w/d, watch the output, & bring him back the next morning should the needle not emerge - which of course it didn't.

Twelve hours later, Geoffrey was emerging from anesthesia with an lengthy mid-line incision & I was handed a 3x5 card with two pieces of the amazingly fine needle taped to it. His gut action had broken the needle in half so the surgeon had to go looking for the pieces - and thread.

Since my old eyes would disallow my ever using something so fine, we could only assume a bird was attracted to the thread & had opted to bring it into my yard to use for nesting material. However Geoffrey found it, it was one very expensive swallow.

I have nothing to share that comes close to the whole paper shredder thing, but i do have a story about my fiance's cat. We had got Q (Aptly named for the star trek character) only a few months before this incident, so he was still pretty young. Was trying to rearrange things in our closet one day, so the apartment maintenance crew could replace our AC. At the time here was nothing in the wall blocking the gaping hole the old AC left behind, and there was a foam mattress pad in the corner of the closet, right near the hole. Didn't think nothing of it at the time, having been years since i raised my last kitten and not realizing the level of mischief this one could get into, so i walk out of the room for a little bit.

Next thing i know, my fiance is freaking out because Q had gone missing! We check all his usual hiding spots, but no luck. then i hear the faintest little mew coming from aforementioned closet. Q had climbed the foam pad and was standing in the hole! My fiance tried reaching for him, but i guess either he got spooked, or didn't want to be caught and didn't realize the danger, but he fell out of that hole. He fell two stories, but thankfully when i went outside to go get him, he was OK.

The Dog and the Shredder. Thank-God and his Doctor. Wonderful, (ok the dog, was not too smart)

There used to be a Dr. McConnell practicing internal veterinary medicine here in the DC area - wonder whether it is him. Good guy.

I can't beat that shredder story - thank heavens! Ow! This is one contest I don't want to win!

I am a medical geneticist and work as a senior scientist at Boys Town Research Hospital and a Professor of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology at the University of Iowa Medical School. I study a broad range of sensory disorders with a focus on those that involve both sight and hearing together.
I am searching for dogs or cats that may have disorders similar to what I study in humans. The disorder is called Usher syndrome, but there are 3 clinical types and at least 9 different genetic types. In this search, I am currently trying to find dogs with a phenotype similar to Usher type 1. In humans this is a congenital hearing loss, usually but not always profound, a vestibular areflexia, and retinitis pigmentosa. The hearing and vestibular symptoms are usually present early but the RP isn't evident until later.
As far as dogs or cats are concerned, I wouldn't expect the RP to be evident as young animals. But the hearing and vestibular phenotype should be there within the first year, perhaps even at birth.
In humans more than half of all babies with hearing and vestibular symptoms have Usher and will develop RP later in life. So, it makes sense to genetically examine dogs with hearing and/or vestibular symptoms as puppies to see if they carry mutations in any of the Usher genes.
Do you ever put out a call for dogs or cats with particular symptoms?

I was in the US Navy on ship in South Carolina. The Chief's wife called from home, a residence in Navy housing. The air conditioner had failed, a bad deal in South Carolina.

While on the phone, she preempted her discussion of the air conditioner. The side I heard:

"Wow, a brand new house and the air doesn't work. Well, I'll call main....what? Our dog is yelping and running around in circles in the back yard?

Hunny, do me a favor. You're on the cordless, right? Ok, can you walk out to the back of the house. You will see a big green box. That's the outside part of the air conditioner. You see it? Ok, do you see the big black cable that's going into it, like an electrical cord? Oh, it's frayed and looks like it's chewed through? Yeah, that's what I figured. Do me a favor, please forget about the air and call the vet!!!"

Ended up his dog chewed through a 220v line going towards the A/C unit. Chief told us later the vet gave a really good prognosis, saying basically, dead or alive, he should be done running within the next few minutes.

And sure enough, after about 5 more minutes, the dog passed out exhausted, but not dead. A full checkup later that day indicated no permanent damage.

Chief ended up putting sheet metal around every A/C unit power cable within that area.

Buddy had a dog named "Murphy." Nice, but he swore the dumbest black lab in the world. Anyway, my buddy was installing some cable TV stuff on his house and somehow, one of his kids took a 3 foot section of coax cable. "D*mn kids" and off to the local store he went to get more.

About two days later, his dog was in the "#2 position" whimpering. He walked up and looked at the "business end" of a bowel movement where he saw, among other things, about six inches of..you guessed it, coax cable. He put his foot on it to hold it down and as he did, he startled his dog. Murphy shot off like a cannon, and the cable stayed in place.

According to my friend, the dog was no worse for the incident.

When our Bernese Mountain Dog, Ali, was about 10 months old, my husband who is an avid fisherman spent all night in the garage making some jigs. He used fish hooks(of course) and hair from deer tails which are about 15 bucks apeice. Got up and all of the jigs were missing and Ali was in the garage. We looked all over but of course it's our garage and there is fishing equipment everywhere. So I took Ali to work with me (I work for a vet) where we x-rayed her. Sure enough fish hooks were popping up all over the place. Also her bowels were very full of about 7 deer tails. Luckily she ate the deer tails too b/c they kept the fish hooks from tearing up the lining of her stomach and intestines. So basically I had a really fun weekend sifting through her poop to see if she had passed them until Monday where we re x-rayed her and no more hooks!! Ali is now 2 1/2 and has thankfully caused no more trouble. Now my husband is much more careful where he puts his deer tails!

Cat are too smart to win this award! Uh-oh, am I in trouble now!

Here on PetMD we are actively working on a function where researchers can interact with pet owners directly and/or access our database of information on our readers' pets (only if pet owners so choose, as privacy matters for pets, too) for the purpose of research that may benefit both humans and animals. This would potentially be right up your alley.

In lieu of that, since this is not an area that will be imminently available for your purposes, I urge you to contact the ACVIM (American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine), whose subspecialty group in neurology covers this area. It might be able to lead you in the direction of an institution whose veterinary neurologists are already exploring this. If this proves frustrating, consider having a research assistant call each of the 28 veterinary institutions in the US to make individually queries.

I do hope this helps. Best of luck with your research.

The shredder is hard to beat. But my aunt's Norwich terrior Griz ate a lightbulb when he was younger. My aunt was changing a lightbulb and had set the burned out one down. Griz grabbed it and had it in his mouth when she turned around. She said "Don't you dare" but he just looked at her for a second and before she could stop him, he ate it. She took him to the vet, fearing what it would do to his insides but the vet said it would come out on its own. He's fine and doesn't even seem fazed by the incident that happen probably a year ago.

Ghounds seem to be the absolute best at doing stupid stuff.

My beloved Bucky once ate an entire bag of prunes (one pound, not pitted) and a half a bar of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap. That incident made our vet laugh so hard she dropped the phone.

The truly amazing thing he did, though, was sort trash--once with disastrous results.

I came home from class to find the Buckster in the middle of the living room with sorted trash around him and a puddle of blood in front of him. He seemed fine; he was as happy and clueless as ever, but there was that....blood.

Taking a closer look at the enormous house we lived in (old barn, built for eight children and their parents some time in the 1920's), I discovered more blood. Blood on the walls, blood on the floor, blood where he'd curled up on my bed. Was that blood on the....on the ceiling? It was.

So off we went to the vet. Dr. Nat discovered that Bucky had severed an arteriole in his tongue and was still bleeding freely (as he had done all the way across town, down my left side and the driver's side of my car). She grabbed his tongue with a piece of gauze and held it tight; ten minutes later all was well. Bucky had gotten an empty refried-bean can out of the trash, as it turned out, and sliced his tongue on the edge.

He was fine. I had a lot of 'splaining to do later, though, because I got a call from my husband to come quick, his mom was in the emergency room with a heart attack. I got this call on the way home, so I sailed home, dumped Bucky in the back yard, and flew over to the hospital.

I had forgotten that I was covered in Bleeding Greyhound Tongue blood. It freaked out the triage nurse. It freaked her out more when I said, reassuringly, "Oh, don't worry--it's not MY blood."

Of ALL the odd (and sometimes embarrassing!) things I've seen pulled out of various dogs...from panties and tampons, to rocks and corn cobs...a CAT definately takes the cake. A client brought their cat in one day complaining of lethargy, vomiting and loss of appetite. On a whim, the vet took a radiograph. It was impossible to identify, but there was a very distinct blockage in the cat's abdomen. The magic barium trick didn't work, so in we went. Turns out, the cat had eaten an EAR PLUG. Who ever heard of a $1200 ear plug?! BUT, the truly bizarre thing:
About 3 months later, the SAME cat came back in with the SAME symptoms...
She'd eaten ANOTHER ear plug.
And for our third course, we have ear plug number THREE. Again.
One cat...three ear plugs.

My son and I adopted a pair of Lab/Pit mixes 4 years ago - so far they have consumed: 1 sapling, 1 rosebush (twice), one leather couch (that was interesting to see later), chewed through a wall, most of the wood trim off the back door, and last but not least.....a bag of bird seed. The bird seed was hilarious, because it comes out regular poop-shape, but it was all bird seed. A week later it started to sprout and my son remarked that it would be an easy way to seed the lawn............

I have one of those dogs who will eat anything and everything. Shoe inserts, leather furniture, solid chocolate easter bunnies, soap, paper towels, cat poop, you name it, she has probably eaten it. The other day, I spent several minutes sweeping up after dropping a framed picture and shatter the glass all over my kitchen. That evening, my dog wondered in and sat next to my feet and began to munch and crunch. Now beig used to her behavior, when ever I hear that noise I pry her jaw open and remove what ever it is that she prbably shouldn't injest. I pulled a rather large chunk of glass from her mouth, scolding her while checking her mouth for blood. She seemed fine, and ate her dinner later. I am just really glad she didn't swallow the glass.

Yeah, Labs gotta love 'em - they'll eat anything, chew up (or through) what they don't eat, and can dig their way to freedom through solid concrete....I tell myself "they'll grow out of it" They are almost 4 yrs old . Oh well, wouldn't trade either of our babies for anything I've just had to learn to put all plastic or wooden dishware in the oven before I go to bed or leave the house and they make it easier to keep the house picked up (no excuses!) :)

I once talked to a customer who had adopted one of our dogs (a young lab) a few months earlier. She was devastated to share that their silly lab had ingested an entire rope of christmas lights.
Between the amount of broken glass in her guts, and the eletrical wire as well, the vet was unable to save her.

On a lighter note, our frenchie once ate like 3lbs of birdseed. We know that it can cause bloat due to fermentation, so off we went to the vet- xray revealed it was still in the stomach, so they induced vomiting. Everyone at the ER was very impressed that such a small dog could eat so much birdseed- they even let us come back and take a look at how much there was

Im sure this doesnt beat out the "shredder incident", but my Rottie (who was almost 2 at the time) thought that a bottle of wood glue she found in a drawer (that she chewed through) would make a wonderful snack. We came home to find her glued to her bed! We, of course, rushed who to the vet who showed us the most interesting x-ray I have seen...with the giant ball of expanded wood glue near the bottom of her distended stomach and a few pieces of perfect looking kibble. She had decided she was hungry even after the wood glue!